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Fight series—entry #1.

Published by Laurie on December 10, 2009 in Leadership. 0 Comments

I’m tired. This is a business, but we live with it like it’s a family member. When our clients feel anxious, we feel anxious. Many of our clients have ridden a rollercoaster of anxiety this year-longer sales cycles, lost sales, no sales. Squeezed margins. Fewer profits. We watch clients swallow down panic. Nearly every business conversation begins or ends with the latest estimation—never a summation—of when things will turn.

In a pep talk this morning Jeffrey reminded me to fight. Our clients are fighting hard for their businesses. We are required, as their partners, to fight hard—now harder—for them. Their trust in us mandates that we be 1) better students of the environment to bring them the best thinking, 2) quicker to cut through the clutter to distinguish them in the minds of their consumers and 3) smarter about what initiatives to keep, toss or place on hold.

I love a good fight, but I can’t fight for myself or anyone else without passion. Today, I had to stop to remember what I’m really passionate about. It’s potential. I love finding and championing the best in those I love and the clients I serve.

It’s funny, the track the mind takes when someone admonishes you. Mine went to a Keith Emerson (Emerson Lake & Palmer) piano solo. It came up on Jeffrey’s ipod several weeks ago as we headed to a K-State football game. It’s intense. When I asked Jeffrey about it he said that Emerson pushed his genius so hard that he ended up with severe nerve damage in his hands and wrists. He was passionate about playing the keyboards to a high standard.

Entry #1—passion. Do you remember yours?

The speed of the gang

Published by Laurie on March 28, 2007 in Leadership. Closed

Are you guilty of reckless leadership? Personal leadership peaks when there is a balance of core disciplines—in my life, that adds up to a good diet, exercise, proper sleep, right relationships with family, fellowship with friends, personal white space and worship. The fulcrum is sensitive. Too much of this or that or looking around at how someone else is living or succeeding destroys zone or centered leadership.

If business success was as simple as getting our personal leadership act together, we’d all be running powerhouses. But the truth is, our businesses get reckless too. Why? Because you and I don’t always lead from our organizational core. We take our eyes off what our business uniquely is, where we’re uniquely going and the best, right tactics for getting there. We read too much, talk too much, gather too much intelligence on some other company’s DNA and lose our strategic center.

Successful companies find and leverage their core. They understand that the building blocks of strategic, directed, effective leadership are core essentials:

  • Core vision
  • Core values
  • Core politics
  • Core decisionmaking body
  • Core competencies
  • Core strengths → core opportunities
  • Core identity platform
  • Core constituencies (primary/secondary/tertiary targets)
  • Core messages
  • Core (unique) selling points
  • Core team
  • Core partners
  • Core collateral
  • Core-directed planning and execution

There are lots of reasons we quit leading from our core. We grow tired. Economic pressure, the principal assassin of core energy, increases. Competitive pressures rail. The team we count on changes or becomes ineffective, moving us from gatekeeper role to the trenches. A new genre of industry thinking causes us to rethink how we do business.

The truth is, if we lead companies we will remain in constant flux. People and processes and trajectories change. A lot about our company’s core, however, is fixed. And when we lead from that core and make decisions from that core, we create core differentiation in the marketplace we serve. Core differentiation—or core separation—wins the attention of our publics. Core differentiation is the principle ingredient for success.

When I was young and in a new leadership position that was likely over my head at the time, another agency principal said this to me: the speed of the gang is the speed of the lead. Those sharp words were an admonition to get my act together and lead from a controlled core.

How are you leading?

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